Education Context Adviser at Save The Children

The Organization

• We employ approximately 25,000 people across the globe and work on the ground in over 100 countries to help children affected by crises, or those that need better health care, education and child protection. We also campaign and advocate at the highest levels to realize the right of children and to ensure their voices are heard.
• We are working towards three breakthroughs in how the world treats children by 2030:
  • No child dies from preventable causes before their 5th birthday
  • All children learn from a quality basic education and that,
  • Violence against children is no longer tolerated
• We know that great people make a great organization and that our employees play a crucial role in helping us achieve our ambitions for children. We value our people and offer a meaningful and rewarding career, along with a collaborative and inclusive workplace where ambition, creativity, and integrity are highly valued.
• Save the Children is committed to ensuring that all our personnel and programmes are absolutely safe for children.
• We undertake rigorous procedures to ensure that only people suitable to work with children are allowed to join our organization and all candidates will, therefore, be subject to this scrutiny.
• We need to keep children safe so our selection process reflects our commitment to the protection of children from abuse.

Role Purpose

• The Education Context Adviser will provide technical leadership as well as strategic support to the project team.
• The Education Context Adviser will work closely with other Technical Specialists including the Teacher Education and Reading Specialists and the senior project team to ensure education project’s design and implementation adhere to international norms and standards of conflict sensitivity, specifically the INEE Conflict Sensitive Education pack, and address both the direct and indirect impacts of conflict within the project to promote positive gains for students and teachers in the project areas.
• The Education Context Adviser will be required to travel to field sites for project oversight and targeted technical assistance.
• Additionally, the Education Context Adviser will ensure representation and coordination with project partners and external stakeholders, such as local and international NGOs, CBOs, local and central government authorities as relevant and required.

Key Areas of Accountability
The Education Context Adviser will liaise closely with other technical specialists as well as the Chief of Party (COP), Deputy Chief of Party (DCOP), and partners to support the project’s objectives. Key responsibilities will include:

• Working with the Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) Adviser, lead on the Rapid Education and Risk Analysis and continued conflict analysis within the education sector to better understand the dynamics of conflict as it influences all aspects of the proposed education program.
• Ensure that the results of the analysis drive the program’s design, implementation, and monitoring and evaluation by closely collaborating with the broader project team, empowering staff with essential knowledge and skills through trainings, through trainings and continued technical support, and collaborating with project and partner staff to appropriately monitor and measure impact and progress through a conflict sensitive education lens.
• Prioritize prevention through supporting policies to protect girls and boys from abuse and exploitation and supporting emergency preparedness and readiness through Conflict and Disaster Risk Reduction planning.
• Working with Teacher Education and the Well-being Specialists, promote equity and the holistic development of the child by supporting the delivery of teaching, curriculum and materials that are free of gender and social prejudices and build competencies for responsible citizenship, conflict transformation, and resilience.
• Support education system strengthening and stabilization by enhancing staff capacity and to Ensure the quality of interventions is standardized across the project (approaches, tools, learning etc.)
• Oversee development or contextualization of resources to specifically address conflict sensitivity within reference, training, and guidance materials.
• Support the preparation of timely and quality program reports on project activities in compliance with project requirements.
• The position will be responsible for helping to ensure close engagement of and partnerships with related government Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs), donor-funded programs, private/commercial entities, and NGOs.

Capacity Building:

• Collaborate with other technical leads and the senior management team of the project to assess capacity needs of staff and partners as related specifically to conflict-sensitive education (CSE)
• Contextualize INEE CSE training materials and create Nigeria-specific training materials; work with the MEL Adviser to monitor and evaluate the use of CSE concepts and approaches within the program
• Facilitate training of trainers and support the cascade of training at the state level
• Support and advise projects’ technical team on key decisions
• Provide continuous support to project team in program implementation, reporting, staff capacity building and management, sector coordination and key technical areas.

Sub-Sector Coordination Representation & Advocacy:

• Take steps to document lessons learned for wider dissemination with EiE stakeholders at the field and at national levels upon request.
• In collaboration with senior program staff, assist in advocacy activities that target decision-makers at all levels.
• Identify opportunities and material to contribute to emergency education communications and media work.

Qualifications and Experience

• Master's level degree in Education, Conflict Studies, or other relevant technical areas.
• At least 10 years providing technical support to education programming in complex contexts with at least 5 years demonstrated experience working on conflict issues in humanitarian responses

Essential:

• Substantial progressive, professional-level experience in relevant technical areas
• Proven technical expertise in conflict sensitive education and the application of concepts/approaches in programming
• Additional technical expertise or experience in key thematic areas such as child-centered learning methodologies, teacher pre- and in-service education, and community participation.
• Demonstrated experience in international NGOs
• Experience of applying relevant interagency humanitarian frameworks and standards in EiE (for example INEE Minimum Standards)
• Demonstrated monitoring and evaluation skills
• Ability to work both in an Advisory and a hands-on implementation capacity
• Ability to write a clear and well-argued assessment and project report
• Ability to liaise and effectively coordinate with government, local NGOs and community initiatives.
• Excellent communication skills
• Strong influencing skills and experience in advocacy
• Politically and culturally sensitive with qualities of patience, tact, and diplomacy
• A high level of written and spoken English
• Good interpersonal skills with the ability to communicate and negotiate clearly and effectively at all levels, taking into account cultural and language difficulties.

Desirable:

• Experience in representation, including Cluster coordination, and ability to represent effectively in external forums
• Commitment to working through systems of community participation and accountability
• Proven capacity to supervise, train, coach and mentor staff
• Understanding local languages
• Previous experience in Nigeria or similarly complex, high-risk environments.

Skills and Behaviours (our Values in Practice)
Accountability:

• Accuracy and timeliness in all areas of responsibility
• High level of accuracy in work, and the ability to analyze complex sets of relationships and situations
• Holds self and others accountable

Ambition:

• Creating best-in-class EA function
• Future-orientated thinks pro-actively

Collaboration:

• working effectively with stakeholders to achieve common goals
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills
• Builds and maintains effective relationships, with their team, colleagues, members and external partners
• Approachable, good listener, easy to talk to.

Creativity:

• Designing more effective admin and data management systems
• Willing to take disciplined risks.

Integrity:

• Honest, encourages openness and transparency, demonstrates the highest levels of integrity.